Slumdog Millionaire Was Big Winner at 14th Annual Critics’ Choice Awards with Five Awards – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Writer, Best Young Actor/Actress and Best Composer

January 8, 2009

SEAN PENN WINS TWO AWARDS – BEST ACTOR AND BEST ENSEMBLE – FOR HIS PERFORMANCE IN MILK

HEATH LEDGER IS HONORED POSTHUMOUSLY FOR HIS WORK IN THE DARK KNIGHT

WINNERS ANNOUNCED AT GALA AWARDS CEREMONY BROADCAST LIVE ON VH1

THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 2009 AT 9:00 PM (ET/PT)

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Jan. 8 /PRNewswire/ — The Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA) announced the winners of the 14th annual Critics’ Choice Awards at a star-studded ceremony earlier this evening at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium and which aired live on VH1.

Slumdog Millionaire was the big winner with five wins for Best Picture, Best Director for
Danny Boyle, Best Writer for
Simon Beaufoy, Best Young Actor/Actress for Dev Patel and Best Composer for
A.R. Rahman.
Sean Penn and Milk received two awards, Best Actor and Best Ensemble.
Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married) and Meryl Streep (Doubt) tied in the lead actress category, marking only the second tie in a lead actor category.

Heath Ledger made history with his posthumous win for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Dark Knight, the first posthumous award in the history of Critics’ Choice Awards. The Dark Knight also received the first Best Action Movie award.

Kate Winslet was honored with the Best Supporting Actress award for her work in The Reader. Bruce Springsteen received the award for Best Song for “The Wrestler” from The Wrestler. Wall-E received Best Animated Feature and Tropic Thunder won the Critics’ Choice Award for Best Comedy. Best Picture Made for Television went to “John Adams,” Best Foreign Language Film was bestowed to Waltz with Bashir, and Man on Wire wonBest Documentary Feature.

Richard Gere, an international film star and an accomplished advocate for human rights, was presented with the second annual
Joel Siegel Award. The BFCA created this award to honor those in the film community whose work both on and off screen inspires and contributes to the good of humanity. This special award pays homage to beloved “Good Morning America” film critic and BFCA member
Joel Siegel, who lost his long struggle with cancer in June of 2007.

Jason Alexander opened the show as Special Guest and the show featured the rock band Rooney as this year’s house band.

The largest film critics’ organization with more than 200 members in the United States and Canada on television, radio and the Internet, the BFCA selected nominees for awards in each of 17 categories. The Critics’ Choice Awards were created by the BFCA to recognize excellence in cinematic achievement. Eligible films were released in 2008. The accounting firm of
Gregory A. Mogab tallied the written ballots. Historically, the Critics’ Choice Awards are the most accurate predictor of the Academy Award nominations.

A complete list of winners is available at http://criticschoice.vh1.com. VH1′s “Critics’ Choice Awards” site is also home to celebrity interviews from the red carpet as well as the full televised broadcast.